And the World’s ‘Happiest’ Country Is …

The nation of Denmark has been named the World’s Happiest Country. After analyzing three years worth of Gallup World Poll data, looking at factors including income, access to mental health resources, “freedom to make life choices”, rates of corruption, life expectancy, the emotional states of residents and the “prevalence of generosity”, the group of scholars determined that people in Denmark were more likely to be happy than any other nation on earth, based on their scoring system. In addition to Switzerland (which ranked No. 2), the top five was rounded out by Nordic countries—including Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden. Canada, Finland, Austria, Iceland and Australia all made the top 10. The U.S. ranked 17th overall, just below Panama and Mexico. America may not be the ‘happiest’ country by conventional standards, but we invented the Cronut, so that’s gotta count for something …